


Persona

by Buttons15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/Buttons15
Summary: If there was one thing Brigitte had learned from working as a mechanic, it was that how a person treated their tools spoke volumes about who they were. In Overwatch, it was no different. There was something telling about the cold indifference Ziegler had towards her Valkyrie suit just as there was a story behind Amari’s affection with her Raptora. And Brigitte was a sucker for stories – that, more than anything, was the reason she’d chosen to follow Reinhardt around on first place.Needless to say, the first time she met Hana Song, she was fascinated.--(in which Hana Song is a very different person when she's not acting)
Relationships: Brigitte Lindholm/Hana "D.Va" Song
Comments: 21
Kudos: 208





	Persona

If there was one thing Brigitte had learned from working as a mechanic, it was that how a person treated their tools spoke volumes about who they were. In Overwatch, it was no different. There was something telling about the cold indifference Ziegler had towards her Valkyrie suit just as there was a story behind Amari’s affection with her Raptora. And Brigitte was a sucker for stories – that, more than anything, was the reason she’d chosen to follow Reinhardt around on first place.

Needless to say, the first time she met Hana Song, she was fascinated.

It came in the shape of a request, at first. Winston had gone down to their makeshift chop-shop and asked her what she knew about mechs. The answer, right then, was not much. But after some well-placed calls from Ziegler, she’d ended up with the MEKA schematics on her tablet.

Hana would come in almost two weeks later, delivering the machine to the garage herself. That wasn’t unusual – people with very expensive and fancy technological devices often wanted to meet their mechanics in person. The unusual thing was that Hana didn’t talk to her at all.

The _even more unusual_ thing was that Hana came back every day after that. To talk to her mech, apparently. In Korean. And Brigitte, damn it, was a curious soul.

“You should tell me about the voice commands, some day,” She walked up to Hana one night, after she’d been working on turret mods for hours. “I’ve been thorough with the schematics, but I don’t think I’ve read anything about them.”

Hana turned to her, startled, eyes wide, as if she didn’t expect being spoken to. It lasted for less than a second – then she had a practiced smile on her face. “Evening, miss Lindholm. I suppose I’ve been terribly rude, walking into your garage every day without explanation.”

“That’s fine,” Brigitte smiled back politely. “At least you always greet me when you come over. You should see Morrison. He just barges in angrily,” She scowled to illustrate, “Stomps around, ‘How’s my tactical visor going? Good. I’ll be back.’ Then stomps right out.”

Hana grinned again, and this time, it felt more sincere. “That does sound like commander Morrison.” She turned back to her mech and placed her hand against the reinforced glass of the visor. “I hope you take no offense. I do trust you with the MEKA, I just…” she shrugged. “Find it comforting to see it, I suppose.”

“No offense taken.” Brigitte touched the mech’s arm, ran her fingers over a dent in the metal and made mental note to fix it. “What about the voice commands, though? What are you saying to it?”

Hana was silent for a long while. When she spoke again, it was in a quiet tone, and Brigitte couldn’t help but notice how deep the rings under her eyes were, how tired she seemed. “There are no voice commands,” She stared at the mech with reverence. “I’m just thanking it for keeping me safe.”

* * *

Brigitte looked Hana up on the internet, as any girl her age would. Turned out she was a bit of a celebrity – when she streamed her battles, the whole of Korea watched. But seeing the woman in the videos as the same person as the woman who visited her garage was a difficult task. That Hana was loud, energetic, an incorrigible optimist. This Hana was… something else. Quiet. Introspective. Perhaps even a bit sad.

“Thank you,” Brigitte said one night, when Hana handed her a warm cup of coffee. Since that first time they’d talked, Hana had brought her coffee with every visit. Brigitte partly wanted to tell her there was no need, partly appreciated the excuse for conversation. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Mmh?”

“It’s about the videos. About the whole… D.Va persona.” Brigitte blinked, sheepishly. She’d spent a lot of time overthinking this, and now the time came, she wasn’t sure what she meant to ask on first place.

Hana took her silence as a hint to speak. “Ah. I suppose you want an autograph, then?” There was a hint of irony in her tone, something acidic that once again made the ideas of D.Va and Hana clash.

It helped Brigitte remember what she wanted to know. “No,” she made eye contact, felt her cheeks warm up. “I suppose I just wanted to know whether you are okay.”

Hana took a deep breath and looked away.

And didn’t answer at all.

* * *

Brigitte knew, rationally, that if there was a self-destruct button, it was meant to be used.

Rationally.

Emotionally, she was far from ready. She’d taken to watching Hana’s stream, in a mix of concern and morbid fascination. Hana didn’t show all overwatch missions – some were confidential – but the ones deemed simple, the ones deemed _safe_ , Morrison allowed for the transmission of those.

And so it was that she sat in her uncomfortable bench, eyes glued to the screen. And so it was that she saw when things went wrong. She wasn’t on the field, but she knew enough of strategy to understand that a quick payload pickup had turned into an ambush. The Talon soldiers flooded in from a building, quickly overwhelming the three Overwatch agents who were in mission.

There was shouting. There were gunshots. Brigitte expected the stream to be cut at any moment, but she supposed, by the number of live viewers, that it would cause a panic. And then it happened – something changed in Hana’s eyes, something so subtle Brigitte might have imagined it.

For a moment she saw – or thought she saw – a clear line between Hana Song and D.Va. It was the way her brows tensed, maybe, or the way her lips curled down in the smallest sneer. But mostly, it was the resignation. She looked so tired, for an instant. So human.

And then she pressed the red button.

Brigitte’s brain took a moment to catch up. Her heart started hammering in her chest. Red lights flashed inside the MEKA as the mechanical voice spoke.

_“Activating self-destruct sequence.”_

_What is she doing,_ Brigitte thought, cold sweat on her hands, _She has to eject now._

But Hana didn’t – instead she kept flying, flying towards the solders and the battle, and Brigitte knew she had ten seconds –

Hana turned on the defense matrix to stop projectiles before they could hit Genji.

Eight seconds –

She threw her mech in front of Mercy, blocking a blow from a talon heavy unit. The visor glass crashed and Hana’s head hit the metal, blood seeping from a large cut on her forehead.

Six seconds –

She was unconscious. Brigitte felt as if the world had slowed down. On the stream chat, people were typing in all caps, sending emojis. She felt as if she was going to throw up, wanting to look away but unable to, her inner clock ticking to five, to four, to three –

Hana opened her eyes and slammed the eject button.

The top of the MEKA opened up and sent her flying, camera immediately switching to the one on her helmet, and Brigitte saw her zoom away from the scene, sent almost a hundred meters up in the air, knowing the explosion radius was just much bigger –

But Mercy, true to her name, came through and caught Hana midair, the Valkyrie suit more than ready to fly at impressive speeds while carrying a victim. And then the explosion came, deafening, and Brigitte saw the two of them shake as the heat blast destabilized the flight.

The screen went blank.

_Of course it did,_ she stood, too much anxious energy to remain sitting, _The MEKA blast comes with an EMP._

Brigitte took a hand to her face to rub her eyes and pulled it back as if bit when it came back damp.

She had been crying all along.

* * *

It didn’t really hit her until the next morning, when she stopped by the door of her garage.

There would be no MEKA inside to fix, not until a brand new one arrived from South Korea.

There would be no MEKA.

There would be no Hana.

And, narrowly, by less than two seconds, this temporary situation could have been permanent.

She felt nauseous when her hand touched the open button and the door whirred up. She hadn’t visited Hana in the infirmary, not yet, but she would, as soon as she’d read up on her tasks for the day. Perhaps even sooner – perhaps she’d go right then, though it was still early and she didn’t want to wake her up –

There was something on the table that cut her line of thought short, and she froze. She approached it almost as she would approach a wounded animal, mind reeling. A single paper cup rested on her desk next to her wrench, the coffee inside still steaming. She picked it up.

There was something written on it – something with unexpectedly round and pretty handwriting.

_‘Thank you for keeping me safe.’_

Brigitte sat down, her legs wobbly.

And then she drank.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Kellyclowers](https://kellyclowers.tumblr.com/) for comissioning this piece! <3


End file.
